China's influencer market is booming & foreigners are getting in on the action.

While many avoid politics, a growing cadre, tempted by traffic, profits & plaudits are aligning their content to CCP-approved narratives.

A 🧵 on the foreign vlogger to CCP propagandist pipeline. The PRC’s censorship regime cloisters its ppl in an info environment that’s cut off from the rest of the world & primed with a nationalistic ideology.

Nationalism sells, & foreigners know it.

It's a shortcut to viral fame.

李子柒在 YouTube 上坐拥 1720 万粉丝，是至今为止粉丝最多的中国网红，但这个平台上还有数以千计的其他中国账户。

等等， YouTube在中国不是被屏蔽了吗？咋回事？

下面告诉你咋回事儿：🧵 长话短说，李子柒一类的网红是通过党国信任的，叫做MCN的机构发布视频的。

具体到李子柒，在她和国内MCN公司微念发生矛盾而停更前，她的海外视频是通过葡萄子（北京）文化传媒公司发布的。

葡萄子是一个YouTube 认证 MCN，位于北京，隶属于马来西亚娱乐公司 Prodigee 传媒。

Chinese influencer Li Ziqi has 17.2 million followers on YouTube.

She's the biggest by far, but there are thousands of other China-based accounts on the platform.

But wait. Isn't YouTube blocked in China? What gives?

Here's how it all works. 🧵 The short answer is that influencers from Li Ziqi down go through special agencies that are trusted by the party-state.

When she was still posting videos, Li did it through WebTVAsia, a Beijing-based YouTube-certified MCN* owned by Malaysian entertainment company Prodigee Media.

如果2021年，你花点时间看中国内容相关的推特，那你很有可能会遇到这两个姑娘。

中国党媒，外交官和一些洋五毛会告诉你，这只是个普通人的账号。

我们仔细研究了一下，其实不是这么回事儿。 🧵 在视频里这俩姑娘自称“大古丽”和“小古丽”，是两个“来自中国新疆的维吾尔族姐妹”，活跃在YouTube、推特、 Instagram 和 TikTok的“古丽讲新疆”账号。

当然这些平台在中国境内都被封掉了。

If you spent any time on China-watching Twitter in 2021, you probably came across these two women.

Party-state media, Chinese diplomats & foreign vloggers tried to make out they were just an ordinary account.

We took a closer look & found out that wasn't quite right. 🧵 The women, who introduce themselves in the above video as 'Elder Guli' & 'Younger Guli', two 'Uyghur sisters from Xinjiang', featured in the ‘Story of Xinjiang by Guli’ (SOXBG) set of accounts on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok.

All of those platforms are blocked in China.

I genuinely understand the urge to write about how WeChat, despite all its problems, is still a good app in some ways.

When I was in China, I loved using it. But despite all the important activity & civic engagement that ~can~ take place on it, that doesn't change the fact that it is a highly censored & surveilled space.

In giving his interpretation of the "Four Points" today, ambassador Xiao Qian avoided a lot of the stiff language that came in the original statement from Wang Yi. In fact, unless I missed something, I don't think he quoted them at all?

The 3rd point "we must insist on not targeting third parties" became:

"to respect each other, seek common ground & properly handle differences."

In June, Chinese Ambassador Xiao Qian repeated the patently false claim of his predecessor that Beijing's trade restrictions were driven by Chinese citizens & consumers—not his govt.

Journos, please press him on this puerile talking point at @PressClubAust today. #auspol For this to be true, one would have to believe that Chinese citizens were so incensed that Australia called for an open & transparent investigation into the COVID outbreak that they lobbied for trade restrictions on us.

There is ZERO evidence that this is the case.

🧵 How did foreign embassies/consulates in China & Hong Kong commemorate this year's #June4th #六四 #TiananmenSquareMassacre anniversary on social media?

These are only the examples we've come across. If we've missed any, please @ me. First up, the Canadian Embassy in Beijing posted a picture of a candle on Weibo.

Helpfully, they cross-posted to Twitter & noted that it had been censored.

https://twitter.com/CanadaChina/status/1533285736652238848

Can't quite believe I'm saying this but you have to read this article by Tom Fowdy
chollima.org/a-pillar-of-li… Chinese version: '三年调查，现曝光昏庸无能，欺上瞒下的CGTN编辑对其下属进行监控的行为'

chollima.org/%E4%B8%89%E5%B…

State media outlet The Paper just published an analysis of the #TheGreatTranslationMovement #大翻译运动 Twitter campaign.

Here are some of the top takeaways. 🧵 TLDR: Chinese state media ran an analysis on accounts that have been interacting with @TGTM_Official between March & April.

They conclude that it has failed to break out of an anti-CCP Chinese-speaking echo chamber & has little influence.

In its attempts to restrict the free flow of info about Putin's invasion of Ukraine, TikTok has—unannounced—blocked an estimated 95% of content previously available to Russians, @trackingexposed found.

If you read our 2020 @ASPI_ICPC paper on TikTok you won't be surprised. 🧵 ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns & operates TikTok is rivalled only by Tencent as the most censorship-ready tech company on the planet.

On March 8th, with the flick of a switch, all non-Russian content was blocked on Russian TikTok.

Thrilled to launch 'Borrowing mouths to speak on Xinjiang', a new @ASPI_ICPC paper I co-authored with @arielbogle, @Nrg8000, @AlbertYZhang & @DariImpio!

aspi.org.au/report/borrowi… 🎨 by the brilliant @badiucao

Here are some of the key findings 🧵👇 The report explores how the CCP uses foreign social media influencers to shape & push messages domestically & internationally about Xinjiang that are aligned with its own preferred narratives.